MMA Fighting - HOAM | Islam Makhachev vs. Alexander Volkanovski Impact On UFC Featherweight Division

Episode Date: October 28, 2022

It appears as if UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski will chase history and a second world title against Islam Makhachev in the near future, but what kind of impact will that have on an interesting 145 pound division? On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, it's a Free-For-All Friday as MMA Fighting's Mike Heck discusses the current state of the featherweight division and how Volkanovski's potential move up shapes things — especially with Calvin Kattar and Arnold Allen getting ready to compete in the main event of Saturday's UFC Vegas 63 card. Additionally, listener topics include Aljamain Sterling's next move, Jon Jones still lobbying for a UFC 282 matchup with Stipe Miocic, Josh Thomson, Jake Paul vs. Anderson Silva, the UFC lightweight division, options for Belal Muhammad, and more. You can listen live to Heck of a Morning Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 10 a.m. ET on the MMA Fighting Twitter Spaces. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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2020, and it is indeed live on the MMA fighting Twitter spaces. You can hear the show in its entirety. Surely thereafter on the MMA Fighting Podcasting Network. I am Mike Kack. We made it to Friday, everybody. I'm proud of all of you. I'm proud of all of us. We have made it.

And we are on the eve of a very busy day in the combat sports world. Of course, Bellator will kick us off with their return to Milan. The UFC will return on Saturday afternoon. 4 p.m. Eastern prelim start time. For that card headlined by Calvin Cater versus Arnold Allen.

The fight is fantastic. I cannot wait to see it. Very, very excited for that one. Tons of boxing. Katie Taylor's fighting. Lomachenko's fighting. Of course, Jake Paul versus Anderson Silva is happening. Jake Paul and Anderson Silva have made a bet.

How about that? At the press conference yesterday, which we were there live for. If you haven't seen it, go to the NBA Fighting YouTube channel and check it out. Jake Paul and Anderson Silva have agreed to a bet. if Jake Paul wins, Anderson Silva will have to be sort of his co-chair on a new Fighters Association.

And if Anderson Silva wins, Jake Paul will fight him in a kickboxing match. Very interesting stuff. Better than the usual Jake Paul bets where there's tattoos and just like fake money bets and all this craziness. This is like way more interesting and Anderson's on board. I mean, what else were you going to bet Anderson Silva?

because you want nothing to do with pretty much anything, but this, he was like, all right, I'm in, I'll do it. So another interesting wrinkle to this whole thing. And it's,

it's such an interesting build to this fight, because it's not, I don't know, like people are, I don't know how to describe it. Obviously, the same vibes we had heading into the Ben Ascran fight, the first tired Woodley fight,

it's not the same. And then even the second tired, would the fight. It just kind of got glommed together last minute because of the whole Tommy Fury situation and him needing a new opponent. And we kind of already went through that song and dance before. We ended up getting a great knockout. But man, that fight was just sucky. It was so bad up until that knockout. I mean, I was there. I'm like, come on, man. What is going on here. Like literally nothing happened for six plus rounds. And then finally Paul knocked him out in the seventh. But it's an intriguing fight. I have a prediction for it, which you'll read

tomorrow, I believe, on M-Afighting.com. There's a betting line that I really like, and I'm going with it. I'm not betting on the fight, but if I were to bet on the fight, this is the bet I would make. But we can talk about that. We can talk about whatever you want because it is, ladies and gentlemen, a free for all Friday. We can talk M.M.A. We can talk about life. A lot of you like to talk pro wrestling. We can talk whatever you want. So let's get after this thing. Let's start with Max. My heck of a morning. What an honor to be starting with you this free for all Friday. How are you feeling today? I'm feeling good. I'm drinking my Dunkin' Donuts, black ice coffee. and they had a deal today where if you got a large ice coffee,

you get a medium for free. So you bet your Bippy that I got my medium sitting in the fridge and I'll be drinking that bad boy later on. Man, what a time to be alive, okay? To be honest, I don't even think they have it Duncan where I live. So that's hilarious. I hope, I'm hoping you're going to enjoy those just as much as you sound like you are.

That's incredible. So what's going on? Oh, yes, question time. So I was wondering about our old boy, Arnold Allen, for this weekend. Arnold on a nine-fight win straight. And out with the max fights and the I-year fights. So, yeah, I was just wondering what you think about Arnold's chances for this weekend.

He's hella strong. He is bricked up, but Cater's not one to go away easily. So, yeah, please give us your thoughts on this matchup. And thank you for letting me start this morning. Cheers. Thank you very much. This fight rules. And we talked about this a lot on BTL yesterday.

I'm like, I'm in on the Volcanowski-Machchev fight. Like, I'm totally in. I was kind of in heading into UFC 280, but after the way the fight ended and the post-fight stuff, like the face-off and everything, I'm totally in. The more I break that matchup down, I'm even more in as the days go by.

But the one downfall to Volk making the move up is that this fight between Cater and Allen, as great as it is, is, the stakes are very minimal now. Now, Volko's sticking around and was like, I'm going to defend the Featherway title in Perth. Someone please step up. Then this fight becomes more interesting in a lot of ways

because no one has emerged in this division. And maybe one of these two guys can do it. But unfortunately, what they're fighting for is the number four or five spot in the division. And I'm not taking away from the fight itself because the fight is friggin' awesome. The way I see it is this is a pick-em. This is a 50-50 fight.

I think there are things that Arnold Allen does offensively that are going to serve him very well in this fight. But there are things Calvin Cater does offensively that could stifle a lot of the stuff that Arnold, Allen does. When Cater gets in close, when he starts landing those elbows, man, I don't care who you are, you got to get hit with those. the one thing that leans me to cater

is the extra two rounds because like Arnold Allen has never just completely gas in a fight but if you go back and watch the Sadiq Yusuf fight he does fade a little bit he does start to slow down and Calvin doesn't

Calvin Cater took like 500 legitimate punches to his face against Max Holloway he was rocked, he was hurt many times, he just kept getting hit over and over and over again. But the man kept coming forward. That's a scary dude. Giga Chikaze was hitting him with some big shots

and Calvin just kept coming and he just breaks dudes with that pace. I'd like to see Calvin be a little more aggressive. He was very aggressive in the Giga fight. I still think he beat Josh Emmett. But again, Calvin didn't... Kevin did enough to, like, not really lose, but he didn't do enough to sway the judges offensively.

So I expect Cal would be a little more aggressive here. I am picking Cater to win a decision. If this is a three-round fight, I would look at it differently. I would lean more towards Allen, but if you're giving me, let me look at the betting odds here because I know what it opened. I mean, it has changed drastically. I think Cater opened at like a minus 140 or something.

What is it at now? It actually got closer. Allen was a favorite yesterday, and now Allen's still a fair, but it's a pick-um. This is what I would have the line at. Arnold Allen minus 115, Calvin Kater, minus 105. That's how I'd have it. But honestly, these two guys are great.

This fight's going to be spectacular. But I honestly think that if Calvin can win one of the first three rounds, it's his fight to lose, because I think he wins the final two. and I just don't see and Arnold can crack man this dude can crack I just don't know if he could put Calvin away I don't know if anybody can I don't know if anybody can finish this guy especially standing with strikes if Max couldn't do it I don't know if anybody could do it

so I will lean cater by decision but I am not confident in that pick this fight is spectacular and I just wish that there were big stakes for such a cool fight like this but it just isn't right now It just isn't. Let's go to Jacob. Hey, Mike.

Longtime listener, first-time caller. Welcome. After the events of UFC 280, the Bantamweight division got really interesting with matchmaking. So obviously, you have the Al Jermaine Sterling, Henry Suhudo, fight that's reported or planned. But the fighter that's most interesting to me is my favorite bantamweight, Corey Sanhagen. So who would you match up Corey with in the Bantamweight Division? And then another quick question is the last time the UFC, excuse me, the last time the UFC had an event in Detroit was in 2017.

I wasn't even a UFC or an MMA fan at the time. So have you heard anything about the UFC scheduling any events in either Michigan or the Midwest? Thank you for having me and have a heck of a morning. Thanks, man. As far as Michigan goes, I have no idea. The one city in America that I know Dana and the UFC want to go to is Boston. They want to get back to Boston. And they were very close to getting back there this year.

That San Diego card was supposed to be UFC Boston. And then when they announced the Dominic Cruz Marlon Verramane events, they changed the entire course of the schedule and they moved it to San Diego. which made sense because of the two guys fighting, but Cruz also has ties to Boston because that's where he regained the Bannamway title against T.J. Dillishah. So they want to get back to Boston. So that one, I know they're going to try to get done. The others, I just have no clue because I don't know what they're going to do

as far as how often they're going to have events in the apex. Like, I don't know what they're planning for 2023. We're already looking at what the pay-per-view schedule is going to look like. We're in, we're international for at least the first two. We're in Rio in January, Perth and February. They're got to go to London either in March or April. Maybe they'll do two pay-per-views in March. Looks like March 4th is going to be in Vegas.

That's what I'm hearing. That's what other people are reporting as well. That could be where they do in Ganu Jones if everybody's on board and they can resign Francis. I know Bo Nicol and Jamie Picketer slated to fight March 4th on that. card. They could do London that same month a little bit later, or they could do London at April, but, I mean, it's just a lot of international flavor for these pay-per-views to start off. So I don't know what they're thinking as far as travel, the apex. I don't know what they're going to do. I haven't heard anything about Michigan, but that doesn't mean, it's not happening.

It's just everything's kind of up in the air right now. As far as the Banimate Division goes, I've talked about this ad nauseum at this point. I'm I'm not I'm still not accepting this Henry Suhudo thing I'm still not into it and even if they book it

I'm still not going to believe it until Henry's in that cage and Aljah's in that cage and Buffer introduces them and the referee starts the fight so if I had the book because you want to talk about Corey Sanhagen

what I would do is Al Jemaine Sterling versus Sean O'Malley that's what I would do you've built to this point you may not get another shot at it. So just do the thing and make that fight because it's right there. It's the biggest fight in the division right now. So just do it. And Aljo, God, man, I don't want to sit here and make this the rain on Aljo parade, but come on, man. Like,

you've got to go all in on Shot O'Malley. Stop with the Suhudo stuff. Stop with the Cheeto Dorito awful banter. Just stop it. Just go for O'Malley. This is a prize fighting, man. Like, this is the prize. It's not Suhudo. It's O'Malley. You'll make the most money with O'Malley. It's the most wittable fight for you. He'll probably beat O'Malley.

And then he can do whatever he wants. Then the world is his oyster. If he wants to go to 1.45 and let Marab go for the belts, like that's your chance. Go make that bag and go. Like, the timing's perfect for you to do this. So that's how I would do it. Sohudo just, again, I don't think he's fighting anybody.

unless it's a title shot and I just don't agree with him getting a title fight right now. I would love the fight I've been clamoring for Sehudo versus Chito Vera but that's not going to happen. So if they do what I want them to do then I would do Cheeto versus San Hagan.

That's the fight I would do. What's probably going to happen it's going to just annoy me to no end is they're going to do the Sehudo fight or at least book it. They'll do Vera versus O'Malley which is a great fight. It's huge. It's a big storyline.

which, and then the unfortunate thing for Sanhagen is that he's going to have to fight Marab. And that just ain't fun for anybody. So, yeah, he's in an interesting spot. But what he needs, what Sanhagen needs is for the UFC to do the right thing. And they need Al Jermaine Sterling to do the right thing and just call for Sean O'Malley over and over and over again. You just tweeting at O'Malley with a bunch of eyeball emojis is not going to do it. What are you doing these interviews, what Ariel Hawani, when you were on the biggest MMA show in the world, and Ariel says, if you had your preference, who would you pick and you say, I don't care,

that's wrong. You need to say, I want to fight Sean O'Malley. This guy gave Peter Yan the business. I don't know if I scored it for him or not. It doesn't matter. That's the biggest fight for him right now. And if Sohudo fights anybody else and wins, then that changes. But if he goes out there and beat Sean O'Malley, which you probably will, then he could do whatever he wants. He could call it to Hudo. He can go to 45. He can do whatever he wants. But go get that bag, man. Go beat Sean O'Malley. This is the time. You may not ever get this chance again. Because if Sean O'Malley fights Marlon Vera, I'm picking Marlon to win. That's a tough fight for Sean. We've seen it before. I mean, we didn't get the full thing, but

Marlin's on a rule right now. Why risk it when you have Sean right there? Like, you've been building towards this the whole time he's been in the UFC, and now he's right there and you're going to not give him the title fight i don't i don't understand it i don't get it so if i'm san hagen i'm hoping they book omalley so he gets the chito fight if nai's gonna fight marab and that sucks for him let's go to to koho ho hey mike um so i was gonna be a dick and say that sorry i don't know if i can swear um okay uh i wasn't gonna go in here and say that um or i was gonna say that ice coffee is trash and then that would be my whole thing but not I'm just going to leave that because we were supposed to see an Olympian on this card this weekend,

but he's been moved to next weekend. And I just want to hear a few thoughts, if you will, about Marco Madsen versus Grant Dawson. Because to me, this seems like a matchup that is even worse for Mark Madsen than the drag car close fight already was. probably to me this is where the Olympian experience ends at least with him being winless I can't talk without him I think he's going to not be undefeated anymore because this seems like a horrible matchup with him and Grant Dawson on a short camp as well or short preparation for him. So I just wanted a few thoughts on that if you if you have the time. See ya. Yes. So Mark Matza was supposed to fight Dracar close on this card, which by the way, from a

storyline perspective, is the more interesting fight because there's heat between these two guys. They don't like each other. Jekar, it's not really a war with Mark Madsen. It's a war with their gym. It's the war with Eddie Cha and that team. And Mark Mattson just happens to be one of the dudes who trains there. So when they booked this fight, I was like, hell yeah. I mean, Dracar's going to talk all sorts of smack about that team. And he was going to. And then he got hurt.

And now Grant Dawson steps in. Now, from what I was told, the original play was they were going to try to get Grant in for that, for this Saturday. But Grant's a friggin monster. He's a very big guy. And there's just no way he was going to make 155 October 29. So they pushed it back a week. Grant's been looking for a fight. If you watch BTL,

Grant literally ran down all the names of the fighters who said no to him. And there are a lot of them. A lot of them are ranked. Guys like RDA, guys like Gregor Gillespie, Isva Goulof, at least according to Grant. So, yeah, this is a much tougher stylistic matchup.

Grant's tough, man. This guy, this guy's a problem. I've been talking about this dude for years. before he was in the UFC, when he was fighting for, like, Titan FC and victory, before he's on the contender series, if you followed my career, Grant was on my podcast many, many times as like a 19, 20-year-old kid on the come-up, and he's had the same mentality the entire time. Once I get to the UFC, year one, I'm going to go undefeated.

Year two, I'm going to be in the top 15. Year three, I'm going to be in the top five. Year four, I'm going to be a champion. He's had some hurdles along the way, Delitz. some Usada stuff that took a long time, but eventually got cleared after his contender series fight. He had some weight issues at 145 because he's just so, he's just such a massive guy.

It's an interesting matchup. Grant's just a freak on top, man. Mark's a great wrestler and he can get really grimy. But even that Vince Pichel fight, like Vince showed holes. Vince showed that there's holes in this guy's game. And Grant's not a guy. you really want to mess with on the ground.

So Mark can win, but I think this is Grant Dawson's fight to lose. I don't know how the short camp's going to affect Grant at all, but from what I understand, he's been at ATT, just getting after it, cornering dudes. I mean, he's training with Bob Zarevloyav and all these monsters. Like, the dude is getting work in. So I totally agree with you. This is a way tougher matchup.

No disrespect to Carr close. But this is just more from a stylistic perspective. Like, Drakar gives Mattson a lot of problems on the feet, but Grant gives Mattson things to think about everywhere. And if Grant gets on top of him and gets takedowns on him, boy, it could be a very, very long night for him. But it's going to be a real grimy fight. I'm fascinated by it.

I can't wait to see it. It's a great fight. It's going down next Saturday. But yes, I agree. This is a much tougher matchup stylistically. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ.

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Winners. Find Fabulous. Double A. What's up? Good. I'm shy. I really forgot my questions. Just two for you. Out of all, all the long list of fights coming up, you got any sleepers for us. And two, I'm looking at this round tree, Dustin Jacob, Kobe matchup, and I don't think it's going to go the distance. I just want to know if you agree with me on that. Okay.

Have a good day, Mike. Everyone else, have a good day, too. Thanks. Thank you. I mean, the one that stands out that, I mean, it's going to fly under the radar by the time it happens is the, where is it? It's in December, right? Whenever Arban Sarukyan fights Amir's Magulov, like, that's the one. That's the one.

100%. That's the one I have my eye on. I am very interested in Dominic Reyes's return. I feel like nobody's talking about that. He's been out for a while since the knockout to Yere Phrashka. Now he's fighting Ryan Span, MSG. That's coming up real quick. Neil Magny D-Rod, that's next week.

Julio Arse is fighting Montel Jackson at MSG. That fights ridiculous. And I didn't even know what's happening until I just looked up the card. I was like, oh, my God, this fight's happening on this card. Montel Jackson is a guy that, I mean, if you listen on to the next one, I mean, that's another guy even so high on. He just doesn't fight. He's just so inactive that like when he gets cooking,

we just don't see enough of him. But he's just so good. If you're a newer fan, you don't know who this guy is. He is a freak. He is a monster at 135. He has, his fists are like, he needs like triple XL gloves on his hands. That's how big this dude's mitts are.

He's just a monster. That fight's going to be a lot of fun. For sure. So I like those fights 100%. But there's obviously more. If you look deep on all these cards, they're there. Cleo Roundtree, Dustin Jacoby's another one that's flying under the radar.

If you listen to No Bet's Bard, which is the gambling podcast with Jedmishu and Connor Burks, Dustin Jacoby minus 175, Calilow, Roundtree, plus 1 for, The Cleo Roundtree has been one of the most frustrating fighters on the UFC roster. I mean, tremendous human being. The depth of this guy is just super interesting, but he's so hit or miss. Like, every time you get excited about Cleo Roundtree, he, like, lays an egg the next fight.

And it's just so frustrating to watch. And Dustin Jacoby, this just resurgence in this second go in the UFC has been incredible. I think he's 6-0-1 in his seven fights. But the stat that Jed pulled up is when Kaleo Roundtree fights glory kickboxing veterans, Kaleo Roundtree is 2-0, two knockouts, two performance bonuses. So maybe it's just something about fighting decorated kickboxers

that just gets this dude up. It's an interesting fight, man. Like, I don't think it's good. I'll say this. If it doesn't go the distance, that means Kaleo Roundtree just not. knocked out Dustin Jacoby. If it does go to the distance, that means

Dustin Jacoby wins, and he wrestles a lot. Like, Dustin's going to stand and do fine, but Khalil is just a murderer on the feed. It's almost tough. Like, when Khalil's on, it's almost hard to watch because he's just so violent in there. Just such vicious intent. And then you hear him at the post-fight interview

after he just nearly murdered a man, and you just hear, like, what a nice soul he is and he just you can't believe it's the same guy but I don't think a lot of people are giving Jacoby

enough credit for his well-roundedness because he could wrestle Jacobi's Jacobi can wrestle he's known for the kickboxing but he can wrestle too he can stifle you with that

so I think if Jacobi can get this fight to the ground at any point he's going to be okay but real interesting fight. I'm excited to see Carlos Mota make his UFC debut as well. Minus 170 favor on a fight he's stepping in on in like a week's notice against Cody Durden.

Let's go to the four-ounce sniper. Four-ounce sniper. You're there. You got to unmute. Try again. Let's go to Zeke. What's up, Zeke? I'm like the glue guy, the glove guy.

I love this. Hopefully the mic is working. Can you hear me? Yeah, you're good, man. Coming out of the ballpen, ready to rock for you. I got two things. I'm not too sure if you're going to like this first take, but I got to get it out.

I'm that ignorant, I'm that ignorant young M.M.A. fan. Short guy, short guy, Alexander Volcanowski. I don't think he can defend a takedown. I think we watched Chad Mendez take him down early in his USC career. I think he also has, I think he also has like a, what is it, rugby background. I'm not too sure if he has a real wrestling background. I'm pretty sure

Islam and Khabi are wrestling bears in the youth. Like, I don't know. I had a great money. Going to bring in a lot of money. I see this fight being less competitive than Charles. Maybe that's an ignorant take to me, but talk me off that ledge. And we talked about Arnold Allen and Calvin Cater. I want your exact prediction. Do we see the cards? Do we not see the cards? Do we get a knockout?

Have a heck of a week, Mike. As I said earlier, cater by decision is my pick, but I'm not fully confident in it. I'm confident of the fight's going five rounds. Like, we're not getting a finish in this fight. I don't think this, I don't think we're getting to finish. But I'm picking cater by decision. It's probably going to be a splitie. It's got to be a close fight.

But again, I think those extra two rounds are going to help cater more than it helps on Allen. I mean, we're going back to the Chad Mendez fight. That was four years ago. and what happened when Chad Mendes took him down? He got up. He got up. And that's the thing about Volk is you might be able to take him down,

but he's very hard to keep on the ground. He also hasn't fought his amokachev. And you bring up the rugby background. It is interesting because, like, people like to, it's like a cliche with Volcanovsky at this point. Oh, he was a rugby player. It was 220 pounds or whatever the hell he was. But that's true.

Like, this dude's been mixing it up with bears, like not literally, but like human bears basically his entire athletic life. So him rolling around with Islam Makachev is nothing new to him. Now, Makachov obviously brings a much different style to the table than he is accustomed to. And Volk seems very confident. He's like, look, he's going to get me down. I know that. But I'm going to get back up.

And what's he going to do when I get back up? And that's an interesting question. and I don't believe I disagree with you I do think stylistically even though Mokachev is a bigger guy I do think this fight on paper is more competitive than the Charles Olivera fight

on paper the Charles Oliver fight wasn't supposed to be competitive it was even when I picked Charles it was just solely a I can't pick against this guy anymore I need to see somebody beat him and then I will believe he can be beaten because what he did prior to

that just didn't make sense. But everything on paper from a stylistic perspective told me and a lot of other people, Islam's going to win this fight. He's going to win it dominantly. But we've played this game with Oliver many times in the past. So I believe, I think Mockachev will still win, but Volk does bring up interesting questions. The quickness. I just can't wait to see the game plans from both of these guys

because they're just so smart. The game plans from the coaching staffs and just the in-cage fight IQ, Volcanovsky's ability to make adjustments mid-fight at the snap of a finger, like these are things that I'm looking forward to. Now there's a very real world where Mokachev just takes him down and smushes him and taps him in the first round.

I don't think that happens. but let's just say like volks down two rounds and it's just not going well his ability to adjust within a fight no one does it better than him in the sport nobody does so i'm i'm interested in it i'm picking mackachev to win as of right now i'm probably going to still stick with that by february but i am intrigued in a lot of ways i will say that let's go to my man brett let's go to boston what's up I'm good, good, good. Hey, yeah, I was just thinking about this fight. I don't know if they could make it happen, but I think it would be a monster fight. You were talking about Balal Mohammed, wanting to call out, like, Cosmott, you know, and that would be the thing.

How about, like, a Robert Whitaker type of fight, a type of setup there at, like, 185 or something? I think that would just be, like, a phenomenal, phenomenal fight. And then you would know if he has the ability, Balal, to take it to that next level, because Whitaker, he's the man, you know, up there. He might not be one, but he's around two, three, four. He's in there, and it would be a great matchup. And I was wondering if there's any traction to Justin Gaichi and Fazave. Now that Gaetius says getting healthy and stuff. So I was really wondering that. And my last question is, is John Jones really waiting for a matchup with Steepa to actually come together for December?

Because that doesn't seem very logical. I think it's more likely that we're going to see him in Nagano. in March. I just wanted to get your take on all that, but have a heck of a weekend, brother. I love your kid. Thanks, man. Yeah, John wants that fight.

I mean, look, he hasn't fought. We're sniffing three years since John Jones' his last fought. And Johnny run in a Fortune 500 company. So if he can get the opportunity, like in John's eyes, this all makes sense. You get a massive fight with Steep A to head. headline of pay-per-view. Then you could turn back around and fight Francis and Ghanu if you win, and it's just a

gigantic fight. I mean, he's getting two massive bags if this comes together. And he beats Stepe. Now, my issue with the fight is that Stepe is good and Stepe could win and then it all falls apart. At this point, like, if they booked this fight, because, I mean, we've been talking about John Jones versus Stepe since the January card. for nine months we've been talking about this since the guy who got hurt had his issues with the UFC

we've been talking about Jones versus Stepei interim title maybe they strip Francis what have you there was talks maybe in June July we're talking about it John Jones Day in September for that September 10th card never came together and now when we're like three months away like three months later we can get John versus Francis we're going to do the steep a fight then Like, I just don't understand. I don't love it. I just think it's so risky. But if they do it, I mean, of course we're going to watch it.

And it's going to be a very big deal. But you could do the same thing. Like, when we're on BTL two weeks ago or last week, Brian Campbell was like, look, I get where you're coming from with the whole steep argument. But what if they just pulled Tai Tui Vasa from the Sergei Pavech fight? And you did John Jones versus Tye Tuavasa. Like, I'm cool with that. Because Tye's a likable guy.

He gets himself a nice, fat, big guy. bag of money too. He's probably going to lose the fight, but you're also losing to John Freaking Jones, the guy widely considered to be the greatest fighter of all time. So I don't hate that idea. But again, anytime you put John in there, it's a little risky when we're so close to getting the Francis fight. So, but if they book it, who the hell knows?

Gagy Fazeve, we've talked about this on the show. There were reports that came out. that there's being finalized for December 10th. That wasn't true. There's no truth to that whatsoever. There were like preliminary talks about maybe making that fight happen, but it just couldn't. And Gachey told me

I asked him if that fight was on the table and he said no. It was never brought to his attention because he wasn't fighting this year. Could it happen in 2023? Sure. But he's sort of laid down the groundwork of what he wants.

He said the loser in the title fight the winner or loser of Chandler-Pourier that's what he's looking at and if he can't get either of those guys I think Fiziv makes a ton of sense he also said he'd like to fight on that London card and I don't think anybody in the UK is going to complain if they get Justin Gatjeet on that card

against Fiziv or anybody else so we'll see what happens with that one I would say just based on what Gachie said because he ain't he in a dude that just pulls punches like literally and figuratively. I would say he's not overly interested in that fight right now, but if he can't get either of those other guys,

then I think he would take Viziv. I don't know if he'd go any lower than that, but that fight would be insane. And then the Balaal-Wittaker thing, I mean, it's an interesting idea, but it would never happen, and I think Wittaker would be a gigantic favor in that fight. Like, I'm not, again, I'm not trying to dog Bala,

but Whitaker win. Whitaker's just so good. He's so good. Whitaker is a more likable middleweight version of Colby, where in a world that doesn't involve Israel-A-Dasagna, Whitaker's the middleweight champion and probably a long-reigning one. And he's booked, as of right now, against Paul Acosta. This is a UFC announcement,

although Paul Acosta went on Twitter yesterday and said it wasn't all done. But by all accounts, Robert Whitaker's getting ready to fight Paul Acosta in February. So, Belal's in a good spot. He's in a much better spot now than he was at any point this year because he's got, he's got a chance to get two different fights. If the UFC can't get Colby on board to fight Hamzat, Belaw's going to get the next call. And if Colby is in, he's probably going to fight Gilbert Burns. So Belaw's in a great spot right now because he certainly wasn't earlier this year when he made those awful callouts that he had dominant wins. but they weren't ones that were going to go back and watch again.

The Sean Brady fight was the one that everyone thought made the most sense, even though he was on that winning streak. So, Blah's in a good spot. So there we go. I mean, look, I mean,

to be honored by this man's presence multiple times in a week is just amazing. New York, Rick. The heck of a morning, Mike. The pleasure is all mine. Thanks for having me. A bit of a random one this morning. We're slowly,

but maybe quickly, not sure how it feels to you, approaching the end of Frankie Edgar's MMA career. We're creeping up on it. And I was just curious, I was thinking about how will you remember Frankie Edgar? Personally, to give my two cents on it, I think he's one of the most underappreciated,

underrated, uh, MMA fighters who's ever lived. The things he was able to do at the time as let's, you know, be frank about it, uh, no pun intended, a bantam weight or a featherweight competing with the very

best of the best at lightweight. is something that now would probably be much more greatly appreciated. He could have been somebody who'd been going up and down for multiple belts, in my opinion, if that had been a thing at the time. So, yeah, I'm curious what you think about Frankie Edgar, favorite moments or anything like that as we approach the end of his career, because I think he deserves some flowers. Well said. I completely agree with you.

Frankie Edgar is underappreciated in history and let's just be honest the judges have not been kind to Frankie Edgar over the years because he had those two fights with Benson Henderson the first fight was close but I've gone back and since watched that fight

and I thought Frankie won the first fight I went back and watched the second fight at UFC 150 and I mean there is just not a world where Frankie did win. So he should have two wins over Benson Henderson. His title range should have lasted longer than it did. But that's neither here nor there. I always enjoyed watching this guy fight.

I remember the first time, I watched his UFC debut, UFC 67, because I remember I was super high on Tyson Griffin. I remember everyone was talking about like the main eventress and stuff. It's like, man, Tyson Griffin's fighting on this card. Sweet. and he goes out there and just pieces up Tyson Griffin, beats him, wins a unanimous decision, takes the O away from him, then he takes the O from Bocheck,

had the fight with Spencer Fisher, on and on we go. But I will say my favorite Frankie Edgar moment was UFC 112. I talk about like betting lines and stuff like that, and I like to go to betting lines often because it helps me sort of gauge where I perceive value when I like break down fights, it's just like an added wrinkle to it. The only, the only MMA bet that I've ever made was Frankie Edgar challenging B,

J Pen at UFC 112. He was a plus six, he was like, I think he closed this plus 600 underdog at the line that I got it. And I made like a pretty decent wager on that one. And no matter how you score it, because I mentioned, I mentioned Frankie being on the side of history with the judging. BJ Penn was probably on the wrong side of history with this fight, but my bank account was not because Frankie Edgar got a unanimous decision on a fight that he probably should have lost.

And I cashed the only MMA bet I have ever made. And thank you, Frankie Edgar. Thank you. Thank you judges. Because you paid me that one. He paid me that time. But I mean, come on. This guy, even at the end of his run, even on this run, even on this run, you know,

that he's on right now. And even the fact that he's lost four out of his last five. He lost a Max freaking Holloway. But he didn't, like, he lost, but it was like a competitive fight. It was a competitive fight. The Korean zombie one broke a lot of hearts. I think that was sort of the,

I think that was sort of the one where we're just like, all right, this guy is just, he's human after all. And we were starting to question, like, how much more this guy, in the tank and that's 2019 took that fight on short notice no one really understood why and then the results went the way that it did then he has that crazy fight with pedro munoz this time he's on probably the right side of history i remember at the time scoring it for frankie edgar against pedro munoz but again i think there was one of those fights that i was live blogging and i haven't

gone back and watch it again but i will the san hagen fight was brutal but the marlin vera fight Like, the ending was bad, and it left that image of Vera's foot kicking him in the face. But up until that point, like, Frankie was very competitive in that fight. And I thought he was winning it. Even at that point, like, Vera was starting to turn it on and take some momentum. But it's not like Vera just went out there, front kicked him in the face a minute. Like, he was competitive against a guy who a lot. There are people who feel like he should be fighting for the title right now.

So, I mean, there's a lot of great memories from Frankie Edgar. I think hopefully he's a guy that we look at more in like a Demetrius Johnson lens, maybe like a Daniel Cormier lens where the law, like when his career wraps, we will appreciate what he brought to the table more than we are right now, if that makes sense. He's going to fight Chris Gutierrez. I don't know. Like, I don't love the matchmaking just because I don't think it does much for. either guy. Like, even if Chris Gutierrez wins, I think it's like a good name to have on the

resume, but I don't think it like just shoots a mid of the time. I mean, maybe it will because of how the UFC rankings work and stuff. But like, I don't consider Frankie Edgar a top 15 Bannerway right now. I like I have Chris Gutierrez ranked higher than Frankie Edgar in my personal rankings, but that's just me. I don't know. We'll see. It's a competitive fight. I'll say that. It's a fight that Frankie could win. What are the, what are the betting lines on that one right now? curious. Where are we at? Frankie Edgar.

Chris Gutierrez minus 205. Come back on Frankie is plus 175. Okay. We'll see what happens. But I think Frankie's career is going to age like a fine wine. I think we go back and he gets the Hall of Fame induction, all that. And we start to, especially the newer fans, when you go back and look at the early body of work of Frankie Edgar and what this guy did. and I mean, what an incredible career.

What an incredible career. And he should get his flowers. And hopefully he does at MSG. What a four-ounce sniper do we have? Can you hear me, Mike? Yeah, I got you. I just wanted to ask a quick question on the main event this weekend.

Why do you think Arnold Allen is the favorite? Because I would say Calvin Caveers should be like a minus 120, minus 130 favorite. I just wanted to get your quick thoughts on that. and we'll see. Thanks, man. I think part of it is

maybe trajectory. I mean, Alan is one nine, all nine of his UFC fights, dudes on a tear, he's coming off the best performance of his career. He was the dog to start here.

Like when this line opened, he was the dog. And I just think people saw value in that. And people just started loading up on him this week. And I think a point that Arnold made kind of stuck at a lot of people's minds is that listen Calvin's a great fighter and he does great things but the dude ain't a brand new car

he's he's been around he's got mileage on him like he's an F150 but and it runs really well but that thing's got 200,000 miles on it and eventually as good as it runs eventually it's going to break down once you hit that 200,000 mark things start to rattle around a little, things start to leak a little. And maybe that's how he feels Calvin Cater is right now. Calvin is not a spring chicken. He's been doing this for a long time.

And I mean, it's a youth thing. It's a you thing. Calvin Cater is 34. He'll be 35 in March. He does have a lot of fight miles on him. No doubt about that. And Arnold Allen is 28 on an 11 fight windstreet. So it's a pick-em fight.

Like, it is a pick-ham fight to me. This is a 50-50 fight. If this is a three-round fight, I'm probably picking Arlen Allen, but not confidently. And now that it's a five-round fight, I'm picking Cater by decision. But no result would surprise me outside of Arndallon's finishing Calvin Cater.

That would stun me just because no one can finish. This guy's a zombie. No one finishes this guy. So, yeah. but the lines kind of were it. The line's kind of right right now. I mean, it's basically a coin flip. Arnold Allen minus 115, Calvin Cater, minus 105.

Like the lines have shifted even in the last two days. Because I think Alan got up to like a minus 140, but now things are coming back to the cater side. So whatever the betting lines were, this is what you put betting lines out for because you're getting action on both sides. You got a lot of action on Allen early. Now you're getting a lot of action on Cater heading into Saturday. This will be lined pretty much where it is probably by the time we get to the fight.

So I can't wait to see it. I just, again, like I said at the beginning, love the fact that folks going up and fighting Islam, I'm in. But the one issue with that is that this fight, while it's great and while it's important, the stakes aren't as high as they could be if folk was just like, nah, I'll wait. I need an opponent for 1.45 in Perth. I'm going to defend my featherweight title. Someone step up and do something. This fight means a lot more than it does from a meritocratic standpoint.

But I still can't wait to see it. Let's go to Crypto. Hello, Crypto. I'm good. How are you? Good. Good. Thank you.

Two quick questions. So you mentioned this in the beginning of the program. What do you think the actual probability is that Anderson Silva will engage in this union debate if he loses based on that bet. Do you think that he will do it or is it just basically to sell the fight? I understand that we don't know how successful it will be, but I'm just questioning if he will do it at all. So your thoughts on that. And second thing is, let's say that Cater wins tomorrow. Where do we go with Cater in that case? Because I mean, he says he is sitting out, right?

So he doesn't want a fight until he gets a title shot. And then we have Josh Hammett in the mix. So if Cater wins, and no matter how we feel about the decision, because I didn't personally, I didn't think Josh Emmett won that fight, but it doesn't matter. We won on paper, so he's the winner. So where do we go with Cater if he beats Brendan Allen? Let's say he even does it convincingly.

What do we do with him in that case? Thank you, Mike. Man, it's a really tough question. It's a really tough question. Because Calvin Cater is one of those guys that the UFC views as, like, an MVP to them. And it's not because he's this big drawing power guy. And it's not that he's this superstar or anything. But Calvin just doesn't give a shit.

You tell him to fight anybody and he'll just say, yes, I'll fight him. because this fight came together pretty quickly. Like this isn't something that was booked in like July. This was booked like early September, late August. Like we talked about, we talked about it on the show because I ran through the timeline of how this all came together because before it got reported, like for the entire week, I was told that this is the road they were going to take,

but it just wasn't done. It was just the whole thing of, I know both guys, from what, I understood both guys wanted this fight in like November. Give us a few extra weeks to get ready because this is not a ton of time. So, but eventually, I would think our lounge was just like, listen, I got a fight. Like, I haven't fought twice in a year in a long time. I'm really not in a position to just turn down a main event.

And Cater's just like, all right, cool, I'll go. And that's what Cater does. So it's tough to say because if Cater wins this fight and like, Bryce Mitchell or Ilya, like, have a great performance. Like, they could just call Calvin and be like, hey, fight one of these two dudes. They're like, okay, I'll fight them. So I don't know. And again, that's what makes this Volk move.

That's the one drawback to Volt going up. But it's also like a main reason why I don't mind the timing of this is because all Volk has wanted for two years is for someone to emerge. And no one has. Nobody has. the only one who has emerged since Volk was like, show me something, is Max Holloway. Holloway beat Calvin Cater.

Then he goes and beat Yair. And even when they booked the Yairir fight, they're like, what is Max doing? Like, he should just go fight Volkanowski for the title. And Holloway's like, nah, this is a fun fight. I'll just fight this dude. And he did, and the fight ruled. Then he got his title shot.

And we saw what happened. But no one has, like, no one has emerged. since Volk's won the title. Nobody. Like Brian Ortega got a title shot, but he beat Korean Zombie. I don't think that win's going to age all that well. It was a great performance,

but I don't think it's one we're going to go back and be like, wow. Ortega just happened to be the guy. And like he inched up into that spot. And then that was a great fight. At least one of the rounds is incredible. But for the most part, Volk dominated Brian Ortega.

That was a one-sided fight for the majority of it, except for that one-stated fight. sequence where Ortega was like so close to tapping him. Josh Emmett has a win over Calvin Cater, but no, not a lot of people believe that he won that fight. And Yair, he has the win over Brian. And like, it was due to what he brought to the table. But it's still one that didn't leave a lasting taste in anybody's mouth.

So I don't know. I don't know what they're going to do. Maybe there's an interim title fight. I mean, Volk has been saying, like, do an interim fight. I don't care. Do it. Let's see if someone can actually emerge. And I think if you do an interim title fight,

like at least you have like a clear cut number and getter because they have a freaking title. At least that means something. But I honestly don't know what they're going to do. Because I don't know what's going on with Ortega's injury. Yair is probably not going to fight Cal. It doesn't seem like Yaya really even fight Josh Eman at this point. I don't know. I honestly have no idea what they're going to do.

You're going to have to fight backwards? or I don't know, maybe they'll do an interim title fight, maybe run it back with Emmett. I literally have no clue what they're going to do next. I have no idea. Oh, four quarter sports, you got lucky. You got lucky. I was trying to tag in a head, but you jumped in the spot.

Here you go. Hey, what's up, Mike? I literally just hopped on right now. What were you guys talking about in the last segment? Because the first thing I was in to come to my mind was going to be a possible interim title fight. Because I was thinking about it last night, And I'm like, what's the quote?

If Okonovsky does fight, right, Islam, how long do you think would be a layoff of him fighting at featherweight, you know, depending on how much damage he takes? But, and who would, you know, who would you favor? I mean, in this matchup over here between Allen and Cater, and would Yaya be a possible slot in for this, for maybe the potential, by the way, what's it called the what's called the interim title fight?

And lastly, what's it called? Any news? I lost you, man. Yeah, so the question we're talking about is like if Cater goes out there beats our and what's next. And the answer basically, landscapers are here. Yay. The answer is I have no frigging idea.

And I don't know what they're going to do with the interim title. I don't know what Volk's going to do. Even Volk was saying he talked to the fine folks at submission radio. And Volk said, hey, if I beat Islam, tell Benil Darius, no worries, man. I'm going to turn right back around and fight him. So now what? I don't know. I don't know what they're going to do.

But something tells me, like, if Volk wins the lightweight title and he can say all he wants that I'm going to go back and forth, he's probably going to have to vacate that's a featherweight title. We've got to move this division along. And if he's already talking about turning around and fighting Benil, yeah, it's kind of a tough spot. So, yeah, I don't know what we're going to do. It's a mess. But it's honestly, like Volk said, I'll get to you in a minute ahead.

Like Volk said, like, oh, Volk, you're holding up the division. And Volk had like the right comeback. I ain't holding up the division. The division's holding up the division. No one's doing anything. No one's doing anything. So, I mean, it's not, not, you know what I mean by this. Like, no one has emerged as, like, a straight contender.

And every time they try to book a fight, something weird happens, like the Yair win. And, you know, Josh Emmett beats Calvin Kater in a fight that most people thought he lost. Like, no one has emerged. It's just been bad luck in terms of getting an actual number one contender. So I don't know. Maybe Volk just vacating the title. And I don't know. It's weird because while right now there's no true contender emerging and he's looking at

for a challenge. And there are some here now, but like two years from now, when Mitchell gets up there, and Teporei gets up there, and Vloyav gets up there, and some of these other dudes that are just tearing it up right now, like, he's going to have challenges. It just might not be right the second. So we'll see. It's a weird, it's a weird division. It's a weird division.

All right, Ahead. Welcome. Ahead. He's gone. It's the matcha or the three ensemble Cicot of Cephora of the FACET that I just deniches, who energize over?

Mm, it's the ensemble. The format standard and mini regrouped, what's all over? And the embellage, too beau, who is practically to give to them.

And I know that I should be they're the Summer Fridays and Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez. Mm, I'm The most most beautiful

the same same the fairos of the Fesferra Cubsorovos Rear Beauty, Way, Cifora Collection and other part of VIT.

Procurry you Corma Stodare and for a better quality of free. OnLing for Cepora Let's go to Bokkins. The question here is, why does Jayae think he's getting the title spot? Like, we haven't seen this guy fight for like twice in like three years, right?

Like, he's out here just like I'm going to hold for the title. Bro, you lost to Max Holloway after not fighting for two years. And then you had a fluke-ish kind of win over Ortega. And now you just think you're getting this title shot. That doesn't make much sense to me. like he needs to fight him or maybe even the winner this Arnold Arnold Cater fight on Saturday. It's very strange.

Like, Yair's approach to the fight business is just very bizarre. Remember, this guy was released. Remember the UFC released him at one point because of the whole is a beat situation. And then he finds himself back in. He had the whole feud with Jeremy Stevens, what happened in Mexico, and then they fought in Boston and then we hadn't really seen him since.

Comes back, Hawley fight was great. Like, I think his stock rose in that fight. And then the Ortega thing, you could say kind of fluky, but, I mean,

it was because of what Yair did. So I don't really, I get where you're coming from. Like, from the naked eye, it's like, oh, that's weird. But again, in the long, in the grand scheme of things,

it doesn't, it's not going to age great. You know what I mean? But you literally have, the president of the company, the champion of the division, and everybody else saying, hey,

Yair versus Josh Emmett, do the interim title fight. The champion is saying, do it. I'm telling you to do this fight. And Yaya is like, no, I'll wait. This is like, it's like the opposite of Benile Daryuge. Like, Benile Darius gets on a microphone and says, hey, I could be the number one contender, but I'll fight 10 more dudes.

And Yaya is like, I'm just not going to fight anybody unless it's Volcanovsky. I don't care if I'm 112 years old. I'll wait. Both are wrong. Like you could get a tight, like you could fight for an interim title right now. All you do is call the UFC and say,

I'll fight Josh for an interim belt. And they'll make that fight. They'll make it. You have the blessing of everybody. I just don't understand where he's coming from. And if we're going to talk about who's holding up the division, yeah, year is probably the biggest factor right now because he's not fighting anybody.

and he's probably not going to fight Volcanovsky either because we know how much the UFC loves guys who like to wait for title fights and not take matchups when they're offered. So I don't think this is going to go well for Yair. If I'm him, I'm just, I jump on this Emmett interim title opportunity if the UFC presents it to him.

Otherwise, maybe Josh Emmett gets the Holloway fight. If that's what Max wants, I don't know. I don't know what they're going to do. This division is weird, but Yairair is not doing himself any favors. Terran Salome. How are you doing? Happy Friday. Good. How are you? You too? So I was watching morning comeback, like, preview game in your own, Shain, who was on there, and as well as Danny.

I forget his last name, but he used to work with Luke as well. And they were talking about the people who are in attendance. Of course, Nate's in attendance. And then I found out that GSP was in attendance as well. I was wondering, they were talking about the possibility like, oh, is GSP there to fight? and as well as if he's wanting to like fight like Jake Paul and so forth. But what I was thinking is like what if he's auditioning? Like if Anderson actually wins, he's going to step up and want to fight Anderson and we finally get something that we didn't get an M.A.

How do you think that would go? And then the last question I had was about, we're coming up on the end of the years and the end of the year awards are about to be happening. Like, for example, I still hold that Molly had the best knockout of the year. I know she's in a conversation, but I doubt she wins because all the other male-dominated knockouts that happen. Have you guys

ever thought about separating like female versus male and like the different categories? I know you have like female fire at year, things like that, but I feel like a lot of the females are overlooked because of the fact that there are so many more male fights in the organizations. That's it. That's all I got for you.

I mean, I get what you're coming from. But like to me, there's a lot of actors into these awards. Like, obviously, it's the aesthetics of the finish. But it's also the stakes that are involved. You know what I mean? Like, Molly's knockout was was friggin awesome.

I mean, this, this was a hell of a knockout. No doubt about it. It's, it's going to be on the list. It's going to be on the list. But with all due respect, Luana Carolina is not Yane and Jacek. like I would actually rate Zhang Wei Lee's knockout higher than

Mollies because of the stakes involved who she fought. I mean, there's a cool moment and it was a great knockout. I just feel like, I don't feel like it's just going to be really tough. Like that Chandler one's going to be really tough

to beat. I mean, Leon Edwards, I mean, with everything involved, just dudes minute away from losing the fight, does the impossible in a lot of people's minds. I mean, that's, it's not a spinning back elbow, but just everything involved, it's just bigger.

It's just a more memorable knockout at the end of the day. And that's just it. Like, and even if we did a women's, like, even if we did a straight women's one, like I still don't know if Molly wins that one.

Like, Zhang Wei landed the nasty spinning move too and retired Yawani and J-Jack and got herself a title fight. Like, the stakes involved were way higher. This is, this matchup was a Molly McCann,

essential squash match. And then she did the same kind of thing against Hannah Goldie, but again, same type of situation. So it's tough. I get where you're coming from. Maybe that's something we'll discuss. I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon, but in a vacuum with like everything involved,

it's just, I'm always going to have a tough time anyways. She was there for a minute. Ilya Topori had the knockout of the year for like, 25 minutes, didn't he? And then and then here comes Molly with her knockout.

And then Chandler Lance is. And then Leon Lance is like, like submission of the year is a weird one too because there's so many good ones. But to me, the one that was the most impactful was Yeri Phrashka, who did,

no one expected him to win by submission. And he was also a minute away from losing to Glover to Shera. And then he submits him. Like, if we're remembering submissions at the end of the year. There are some cool ones, no doubt about it. We saw buggy chokes. We saw submission that there's no official name for yet in Bellator, but the one we're going to remember is the

year he won the title. He was losing the fight. He was about to lose. And that fight was one of the most insane fights in the history of the sport. So there's a lot that goes into it. It's all personal preference, too. There's probably somebody on our staff that thinks Molly's knocko is the best and that's cool you can also make a like and i even brought this on btel that you can make a case for molly mccan if she beats erin blanchfield to be the female fighter of the year like at least in the conversation she'll be three and oh she finishes erin blanchefield like that's that's an impressive win and no one's really emerged right now nunez has one win Chowchenko has one win

and it was a close fight. Maybe Zhang Wei Li gets it if she beats Carla. And if Carla beat Zhang Wei Li, she's in there too. So, very strange. But I get where you're coming from. I'm not totally against that idea, but I just think she would have lost. Like, Molly might lose that even if we did a separate division.

Tristan, take us home. Hey, Mike. I want to talk about here. about Amman Surukin, again, his fight against Demir is Magula. It's a very important one because, you know, we'll see how he responds to his losses against Matus Gamron. If he beats Demir, if you're him, you got to, do you call the rematch for Guam and do another five round with him?

Because I'm looking at the rankings here. I'm looking at the MMA rankings, MMO Global Rankings here. And he's tied. Arbor Syruken is tied with RDA as number nine. And then Gamrod's number eight. And he's coming off a loss. I don't see where Gamrod grows anyway. So if I'm Surukin, I'm calling for the rematch.

I would think if I'm him calling, I'm definitely calling for the rematch, even though it's quick. But Gamron's coming off a loss. And if Surukin beats Demir, that's huge. and be like, I want the rematch. Let's do it. Let's run it back. So I just want your thought to me on, I mean, I think it's an important fight for Army. He's got to win.

He's got to figure out a way to win that fight. I mean, it's so tough because the mirror is just, it's going to be really, really close. But Searikin is going to have to do what he can to get to Edge Dad win. But if he does, he's got, he's got to call. I'm calling for the rematch. And then for Jalen Turner, I heard, I forgot where you guys called probably he needs, a veteran, I, I, I, I would want to see him against, um, uh, Goudelaze. Um, I think that would, I know Goudelazes not ranked and I feel like he should because I think,

I think he would be Grant Donson. I know you haven't ranked at 15. You know, I, I, I would, I would want to see Jailenturn versus Goudelaze to be honest with you. So just your thoughts about that, Mike. Thanks. I don't agree with that at all. Uh, I love you, Tristan, but I don't agree with you. Jailen Turner's just on a tear right now. he just beat he got into the race top 10 just beat brad redell and then you're going to have him fight grum kutatsalate not a fan of that not a fan um suruki i won's interesting i don't think he's gonna call for gamrov because that fight does nothing for him all it does it's just an ego fight i and again i'm a broken record here but i've watched that fight more than any fight this year by far it's my favorite fight of the year like if i'm if i'm

on the treadmill or I'm going for a run and like I need an extra boost. I turn that fight on because it's that good. It's not going to win fight of the year. It's not going to be my vote for fight of the year, but it is my favorite fight of the year because it's so good. And I have not watched it once in like the 30 plus viewings where I thought Gamrot won. And not saying that there was a robbery or anything like that, I just felt Surukia on one.

The Gamrodh fight does nothing for him right now. Literally does nothing for him. If he wins and calls Gamrot back. out, that's a bad call-out. Because there's no reward for beating him outside of just, see, I told you so. And then Gamrock could just be like,

hey, we're one-one, let's do it again. And now you're tying these dudes up. If these two are going to fight again, it's going to be when the stakes are high, when they're both in the top five. And God signed me the hell up for that. I have no idea what they're going to do. Hopefully,

after this Chandler-Porrié fight, we can change up what this division means right now because it's just the same dudes fighting each other and it's frustrating to see guys like Fiziv, to see guys like Turner and Surukian, and I mean, Gamrock got a big fight with Darius, but like, none of these guys are going to move into the top five.

Like, none of them. It's just so annoying to watch. So, if I mean, if I'm Sarukian, I'm calling for the loser, Porre-Channler. That's what I'm calling for if he goes out there and beats his Bugulov, which I think he will. I think it's a good fight, and I think his Bugulov's really good.

But I honestly, I'm telling you, I've been saying this for a long time. Armand Sarukian will wear the UFC lightweight title at some point. He's going to wear that title. He's only 25. Dude's got a long way to go. He will be the UFC lightweight champion. Trust me, I tell you this. But, yeah, I don't love the Gamrock callout. Unless it's later on.

All right, Ahead. Come on. Be a professional. There he is. How are you? Good, Mike. I'm good. Like, my Twitter freaking sucks.

It's so annoying. When I say that, not my account. My tweets are awesome. My app sucks. But anyway, the thing is, I'm hearing what you're saying, Mike. And it's like, I'm convinced you have like a room dedicated to Armand Syruquian. Like, you're just like a super fan at this point. But I wanted to.

come on yesterday to double down on things I said on Wednesday because I heard some stuff that rubbed me the wrong way. I talked about Henry Sohudo and how you should jump into a title shot and like people like, oh, it's going to disrupt the division. He doesn't deserve this. He's going to like just jump back out. And it doesn't make sense to me because it's like, who deserves anything in MMA? People jump up divisions. They hold up entire divisions anyway. So how is this, this is nothing new. And the idea of someone coming back for a short period of time, that's nothing new as well. GSP came back and fought, in my opinion, respectfully, and I'm British, so I mean this respectfully,

the weakest middleweight champion in Michael Bisping because he had one freaking eye and then he left. And it's like, well, none of us are surprised. And who else? Khabi, people asking Khabib to come back and then go again after one fight. it makes no sense to me so it's like yeah let's just welcome henry sahuda back and i've said it before again like if alex wins or loses and henry will win against algerman because alger has no chance that that fight will be made and who cares at this point um because it's just entertainment at the end of the day not it's not like other sports where people deserve things and people just get what

they won and about the um like the usada i've said this before i've said it again Jeff Novitsky, the bold guy, is an absolute moron. He's tested Yuri Prahaska 20 plus times, completely idiotic, and he's just left out all these people in Thailand who are clearly probably cheating. And about the Josh Thompson thing, because I wasn't on yesterday, I kind of see in some respect where he comes from in a sense that

MMA media, obviously, it's not their job to promote specifically Bellator. That's obviously not true. all it's not their job but in the sense that they they maybe should uh promote more like mhm a from other promotions like you know bellotaur one championship you know seeing interviews with like a j mckee patriccio bitpool as soon as these announcements come out to like do service to m m m a as opposed to promoting stuff that i don't know that this like jake paul clown show and i don't like i don't hate jake paul i think he's pretty funny like but i more and more just don't care. And even BKFC, I just feel like it's just a bit random, even though they've got

Sanchai and BuroC, which is a lot of fun. But you get my point. Drop the mic, Mike. Man, where do I begin? Where do I start? I head, I'm going to start off with this. You have brought tremendous value to this program. I love you, man. I think you're great. But you were literally wrong about literally everything you just said. Now, you weren't correct once. Not once. First of all, and I don't know if you meant to do this, but I don't care. You did it. You just into a live Twitter microphone compared Henry Sehudo to GSP and Habib Nurmaka Madov.

What are you smoking? What is, what are you talking about? This is not the same thing. This is not even close to the same thing. So Hudo is not anywhere near the level of star of either of those two guys. And even the GSP thing. Trust me what I tell you this, because it's been talked about a million times. If the UFC could do that GSP thing over again, they wouldn't have done it.

The only reason they did is because GSP said, all right, I'll fight Robert Whitaker afterwards. And then GSP turned his back on the UFC and said, no. So when there's any even thought about doing GSP versus Habib, when Habib called for it and wanted it, and GSP was talking about Wouda 155 and all that, that's why they didn't do it. Because they knew GSP would take the belt and leave. Which is why I am against the Henry Suhudo idea.

And again, it's not because of merits. It's not because of what this guy has brought to the table. It's because he is unreliable. It's because I don't believe he's serious about doing this. I don't care that he's back in the pool. All I have asked of this man is to fight one time against anybody. I don't care who it is. Create a fictitious Suhudo title.

I don't give a fuck. But just prove to me that you are serious and that you really want to be here. Because guess what? The division doesn't need them. If Henry Sehudo never fought again, the Bannamate Division is still going to be this incredible division. It ain't lightweight, but it's damn close. They don't need them.

Everybody moved on without him. They moved on from him the night he retired. They moved on. Dana White sat up at the press conference and said, you're done. We're going to get Piardiana title shot. Three hours later, they were done with them. And now when this division, an entire year has been built around building this division and trying to find contenders, we've did this little mini-ground Prix.

we finally have someone at the top who has emerged, no matter how you score the fight, and it happens to be the most intriguing guy in the division, you want to skip everybody and give Sohu a title shot in a fight that is cool on paper, but long term, does it mean anything? No, it means nothing. If he wins, what's he going to do?

He's not going to defend the belt. He's going to vacate and go fight Volk, and if he beats Volk, he's going to retire again. So what are we doing here? all I ask is that he fights somebody else. I don't care who it is. He can go fight Jonathan Martinez. I don't care.

Go fight Jonathan Martinez. Beat him, go fight for the belt. Just prove to me you want to do this. That's all. The UFC doesn't want to get burnt. They don't want to get burnt by this guy again, because guess what? He burnt them.

He screwed him. He turned his back on them. Put him on this card. We're saying, screw you, pandemic. None of the sports want to do things? I'll do it. We're going to put Suhudo in the spotlight. It goes out there, they give him a favorable match

of Dominic Cruz, and he goes out there and finishes. And they're just about to build him up and put him in a position to be a star. What does he say? Nope, I'm done. I want Connor money. See ya. Terrible.

Literally the worst retirement of all time. One of the worst in the history of sports is definitely the worst combat sports retirement. It's awful. He has handled this all so badly. And it stinks because I do like him as a person, and he's a tremendous fighter. But the problem is he overshot his shot. His notion that he's a big star, it was so wrong. And if he never fought again, nobody cares.

It's not a knock. It's just the truth. So no, I don't agree with you. He's not Habib. He's certainly not GSE. that makes no sense. It just makes no sense. You don't need to do this. There's no need for it.

Nobody is clamoring for this. There's not been, it's not trending on Twitter that we want Henry Sohudo back. No, the only one who has said anything about it is him. And I can't believe Dana brought his name up at the press conference. I can't believe it.

And I can't believe Al Jemaine Sterling is entertaining this idea. I don't understand it at all. I don't get it. People shit on Colby all the time, but Colby's got the prize fighting thing down. And Aljo has the chance to just be a prize fighter, and he's not doing it. He's got to take this fight with Tehudo that will be cool.

It'll be a co-main event. People will talk about it. But no one's really going to care. And then if he loses, like, it's all over. But if he goes to fight Sean O'Malley, it beats him. It's a big win, and he can do whatever he wants. Like, I just don't. get it. I just don't get it.

And don't even get me started on the Josh Thompson thing. I said everything I needed to say yesterday. But again, and I'm going to try to be a little calmer about this, what Josh Thompson did was not help. What Josh Thompson did the other day was he hurt the

promotion of that card more than anything we could do? That's what he did. He hurt the promotion of that card worse than anything we could do. If I just said right now that I'm not covered it, Josh Thompson did more damage because

when he put out that video or that clip and I don't know, it might have been part of a longer episode and I know if Josh responds to be like, well, you didn't listen to the whole episode. I don't care. I ain't going to go back and listen to the episode because I don't like the show. But the problem is you made a decision to clip that part out of it and put that up there.

Now, if the previous five minutes were oh my God, AJ McKee's fighting this dude or Patricia Pipple is fighting this dude, it's champion versus champion and you show the accolades of both these guys and you talk about putting these guys over first and then you put a little clip about the MMA media thing I don't have the same reaction that I had but you chose to only put out that clip on your social media and the only reason you did that is because you wanted Josh Thompson to go over you made it he went into business for himself he went into business for himself it was not about Bellator it was not about

the card it was about how can I get people talking about me that's exactly what he did. So no, I don't get where he's coming from. Because he made it about him. He broke the rule ahead. You don't make it about yourself. If you really care about the card and about the fighters, the clip

you should have put up is about the card and the fighters. Not about the media covering it. Because guess what? We cover every Bellator. We're covering the Milan card tomorrow, and that card sucks. It's a bad card. It's the worst card in the day. We're covering it.

So don't tell us how to do our jobs. The problem is, and this is a problem Bellator's had for the last couple of years, they just don't tell anybody that these things are happening. Like, I'm glad we had a press conference, and I'm glad we did all this stuff. The problem is with Bellator's, they do, there's no middle ground. They either under-promote things or they over-promote things. And it's a good start to promoting this. Like, again, there was not one negative comment

about this card. Everybody was in. They all thought it was great. But let me tell you this. And I hate throwing out numbers and clicks and all that shit. But I'm going to throw this one out there. After Josh Thompson's little clipy clip went out on social media, I went and looked at like the current numbers of M.Afighting.com. Like what are people looking at right now? And it lists on our chart the top, where are we at here? 26 things that people are currently looking at. Nowhere on the top 26 was that card on there. In fact, the scorecard from Sean O'Malley, Piotr Young from Saturday, was ranked higher. It's not because we're not putting it out there and talking about it.

It's that you got to get people on board. You got to do cool stuff. And I put Bellator over. The Long Beach card, listen. If I never see another video of the liver king, it'll be too soon. Like, I don't need to see any more of the liver king. I don't care. But the guy was trending.

Everybody was talking about him. And what did Bellator do before that Long Beach card? They brought him out. They brought him out. They did something with him. And Paul Costa, which is also very smart. And then Petriki Pitbull was in there as well. It was smart.

Like, you've got eyeballs on your product in a very unique and compelling way. You took a guy that people are into at this current moment, and you brought them in to get eyeballs on your card. That was brilliant. That was brilliant. Very smart. This is what you need to do. Things like this. It's not just about, like, I know you think it's, well, you're not promoting the card.

Sure you are. Sure you are. You're getting people to be like, oh, what's this? Oh, why are they doing this? Oh, there's Belator's got a card tomorrow? Oh, if they're doing this before the fight, I can't wait to watch the fights the next day. That was brilliant.

And then with the Sabbath, like, I go back to the Sabatelo Stotz promotion. That is one of the coolest fights of the year for them. They have built this thing up perfectly. Sabatello has done a tremendous job building himself up to the point he's at right now, and Stats is a great foil for him and vice versa. And they did a great job getting them on the MMA hour, go in studio, they're bantering back and forth, Ariel's going to separate them, great stuff.

I mean, tremendous stuff. And then what do they do? They have like eight more face-to-face interviews within a 72-hour stretch. Like, what are we doing? You hadn't the best one already. It's not going to get any better. What are we doing?

Why are you doing this again? And we're still three months away from the fight when this is all going on. Like, we just got to be better with promoting. We're certainly going to cover it, and we're going to talk about it. We're going to interview the fighters. We're going to do it. We're going to do all of these things.

It's just, is it going to be enough? Is it going to be enough? I don't know. I don't know. It's not up to us to go out of our way to do more. Because we cover every Bellator car. We do interviews. We do write-ups.

We do all of it. Ariel has Bellator fighters on a show all the time. So we're doing our part. And the card is cool. It's great. But the whole thing of Josh putting that out there wasn't about them. It wasn't about the promotion in the fights. It was about Josh.

And that was my issue with the whole rant. It was very hypocritical. You need to do your effing job to put this card over when the only thing you were doing was putting yourself over. Like, that's wrong. That's wrong. And that's why I had such an issue with what Josh. said. I don't remember your other point ahead. I love you, buddy, but wrong on both accounts. I'm sorry. I just can't agree with you. Normally I like to play.

I'd love to hear an argument, but I can on this one. All right, Blake, I'm going a little longer than I should, but I'm going to get you in. You've been waiting patiently. What's up? Blake. Let's read his comment here since I don't know, Blake. Henry is one of the best to ever do it, and I don't like Suhudo. Habib is maybe number nine pound for pound goat and Suhudo number 10 goat. Habib only defended the saddle three times. That doesn't matter, dude. That doesn't matter. People wanted to see Habib fight.

People wanted to see GSP fight. They were clambering for it. Nobody's clamoring for Suhudo to fight. Nobody. All right, Blake, I think we can hear me. What's up? Yeah, I don't know if this was cleared up before, but if TJ couldn't have stepped in that night to fight,

who would have been the backup? It would have been Yon or would have been O'Malley, where they had to have just scrapped the fight and push it to another time. Also, where would you think Demetrius Johnson would stand within the current band-and-weight division? I know he's fighting in one, and their whole weight-cutting system is different,

but he's clearly a 135 or now, and I still think he could fight with the best of the best, and I don't know if he could challenge for a title shot, but I definitely think he could be in the top five. And one last one, I know I haven't been on here in a long time, but I know for, in MMA, we always talk, about elevation and how that's such a big factor with fighting and how it totally kind of busted that one pay-per-view card. I forget the number with Usman, but 278.

And it's really weird to me that people are always bringing up the elevation as an excuse of why the fights were so bad, because if you think about all the other major sports, whether it's, you know, hockey, NFL, NBA, MLB, and, you know, these MMA fighters are probably the best cardio athletes in the world compared to those other sports. The elevation never brought up of why, oh, this team lost because it was, there's too, it was too much elevation and it was too, it was too hard for them to, you know, run and play their best. And they were gassed out because of the elevation, the elevation.

And I just don't understand why it's been brought up so much in MMA, but not so much in common sports. Thank you so much. I mean, like, I get where you're coming from. 278 was a weird card. It wasn't just the elevation. It was just, and I,

look, Salt Lake City to me seems like a beautiful city, but it just doesn't seem like a big fight city. You know what I mean? Like Mexico City is a fight city. Like Denver's a fight city. Salt Lake City,

not really. So it was just weird because like people didn't, and I think it was kind of the surprise factor because even I was saying coming in, like, I think the altitude was going to play a factor in the Jose Alda Marab fight, but only like in the third round.

but it affected everybody. I didn't think it was going to take that kind of a toll on on everybody in the card. I really didn't. And I think it was just kind of surprising to people, if we're being honest. As far as DJ goes, as Abanimway,

yeah, he's probably top five. Yeah, he's top five. Because we've had this discussion about our rankings, like is DJ a flyweight or is he a Bannamweight? I don't know. But he's set, I mean, the man set into a live microphone. phone. I'm not fighting at 125 anymore. So to me, he's a Bannonweight, but we kind of keep him where he's at

at flyweight. I don't know. And then, oh man, now I'm going to get all fired up again. The Dilloshat thing is, the whole thing was stupid. And I've been trying to tell you it was stupid from the moment they booked this fight. The fight should have just been Jose Aldo to begin with. It should have been Aljo versus Aldo. That was the fight that should have been made the entire time. And instead, we got this fight. T.J. was compromised. and now we're having this conversation. If you just put Jose Aldo in that fight, we're not having this conversation right now.

Marab's stock would be higher, actually, because Marab beat Jose Aldo, but I don't think he did himself any favors with how that fight went, if we're being honest. Man, just such a bad move by the UFC. Booking that fight. Like, when Jose Alters right there, makes you so mad.

all right i lied i'll get dug in here Doug what's up i cannot hear you okay all right well we'll try one more time let's see if we can get them i'm going to yell that if i don't get out of here soon

Doug do we have you unmute all right we tried Doug all right we gotta go a lot going on very busy weekend very busy day the ufc wayans i think they might be going on right now I'm not sure they're happening soon

we'll have the jake paul anderson civil way-ins coming up in a little while. Preview show. UFC Vegas 63. It's going to be me and the best friend, A.K. Lee. 3 p.m. Eastern. We'll be going live for that.

Just a heads up. Casey is on Paul Silva duty. He's in Arizona, so we won't be producing the shows. So they're not going to have the glitz and glamour on the YouTube feed that you are normally accustomed to, but we can give you

the shows anyways. Ceremony away-ins for Paul Silva coming up later on as well. So we get you covered there. And then tomorrow's just going to be an absolute chaotic day with Bellator, which we're covering. All right, Josh Thompson, UFC, tons of boxing, Paul Silva, all that fun stuff. So back here on Tuesday, 10 a.m. Easter will do it again. I'm sure we'll have a lot to discuss. Thank you all very much.

Have a great rest of the weekend. Enjoy the fights. and as always have a heck of morning everybody the vox media podcast network